Stateside’s Cyndy Canty spoke with Bill Loomis, writer for the Detroit News, about the city’s history of dedicated drinking.

“You could get liquor almost anywhere. Pharmacies sold liquor. You would bring in your container and they would fill it up and charge you,” said Loomis.

According to Loomis, the settlers switched from brandy to whiskey when Americans improved their operation techniques. Still, brandy was popular throughout Detroit, due largely in part to its French heritage.

“The French people were not Puritans. They liked to dance,” said Loomis.

It was a time when drinking spanned generations. Hands both doughy and wrinkled could be seen gripping a glass of rum.

“Everybody drank and they drank all the time. Kids drank. Grandma drank,” said Loomis.

Such alcoholic fervor, says Loomis, was largely a result of the city’s lack of access to clean water.

“Water sources were rank. They were brought in from the Detroit River,” said Loomis.

When Prohibition passed in 1917, some Detroiters took to bootlegging.

On this topic, Loomis said, “That’s always been an issue for Detroit because of our proximity to Canada. The rum-runners in Detroit were at their peak for only about a year and a half. There was also booze coming up from Toledo. It was impossible to stop.”

Prohibition endured for 13 years.

But in 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt repealed the Amendment and said, “I think this would be a good time for a beer.”

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Back in the 1980s, The Detroit News had an excellent editor named Lionel Linder, who did his best to improve the intellectual quality of the newspaper.

Later, after the ownership changed, he became editor of a newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee. On New Year’s Eve 19 years ago, he left work in early afternoon to go home. Unfortunately, he drove across the path of a deadbeat who had been drinking package liquor in his car since morning, and at that very moment passed out with all his weight on the accelerator.